I just finished knitting a Bohus-style hat using the “Dean” pattern. I’m blocking it now and the way things are going, I’ll have plenty of opportunity to wear it before it’s too warm for wool hats.
With the leftover yarn, I’m knitting some mittens to go with. Here’s a pictureof the work in progress.
Super cool to have a “real” publisher and be in B&N. It’s so funny–here I am writing books, and my husband, who wrote a one-off article for a small audio magazine, got it re-printed in a major one so HE’S the one in Barnes and Noble. Ha!
I have participated in Twitter pitch contests and gotten some requests for full manuscripts, but no contracts. To be honest, I might stick with self-publishing. Less hassle means more time to write. I am waiting for all of my books to drop out of KDP Select right now, at which point I’ll put them on Smashwords and Goodreads too, and force Amazon to make the first in my trilogy, and the first installment of this new serial, permafree. I have seen such a steady increase in sales as I use up my KDP “free giveaway” days that I think having the first in a series permafree is probably the way to self-publishing success. But I’ll find out 
There is much wisdom here. You’re basically doing the same time-honored sales enhancer beloved by crack dealers the world over: “First taste is free.”
Look, I’ll be honest. I wouldn’t have paid for your books based on the word of mouth of anyone short of The Virgin Mary Herself. And even then … Having read the first one, however, there was no way I WASN’T gonna pay a few bucks to keep finding out what happened.
I didn’t realize there was so much background to your brief freebie window a while back!
Thanks for the pictures, Chefguy. Really pretty. I like to see the wood doing its thing.
Cwthree, those mittens are going to be beautiful and the hat and the colors are amazing. What yarn are you using? Are you on Ravelry? (I am there as kayT.)
Thanks very much, kayT. I got the yarn from Kimmet Croft Fiber on Etsy. She has kits for a several Bohus designs for hats and sweaters. They’re all based on her Fairy Hare yarn, which is a mix of angora and merino wool (used to be angora and Rambouillet wool) and is similar to the yarns used by the original Bohus knitting co-op.
On my now-dead-but-still-in-a-plastic-bag-in-my-apartment hard drive from my old computer I have 2 complete acts (70 or so pages) of a screenplay I’m writing.
When I have the money to afford a hard drive transfer I will put it on my new desktop/laptop and I have about 3/4 of a mind of completing the damn thing.
I don’t think it’s that bad honestly and when I’m done there’s a part of me that wants to do something with it, but I have NO IDEA what you do with a spec screenplay…
OOOOooohhh is that a Fairy Hare kit??? I remember reading about her… oh golly. Back in the stone ages. Like, the late '90s.
So does the angora fluff up after washing/blocking, or is that the finished state? I kind of remember some Bohus stuff having really fluffy yarn in it.
preens
I have numerous half-done projects sitting in hard drive limbo.
A Flash animation for Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand. I have Cave as a kind of zombie cowboy, his keyboard player as a skeleton in a zoot suit, his drummer as a goblin playing skulls, and his bass player as a mutated version of Les Claypoole. I put together a few animation sequences, then petered out.
A graphic novel made in Illustrator based on my friends’ plot about paranormal investigators from the Georgia Appalachians who go to a resort town in Montana based on 1950’s America that somehow turned into zombies. I’m about halfway through, but didn’t feel like going any further when I drew a huge ornate public fountain that will be populated with spurting blood and detached limbs.
A Pathfinder campaign module based on Edward Icke’s lizard people conspiracy. The Annunaki have infiltrated many of Golarion’s governments and have secretly replaced powerful rulers and royal families with duplicates. I play-tested part of it with friends, but haven’t detailed the other parts yet or tied them together.
A wrestling card game that incorporates all the cartoony hokiness as well as genuine moves. I did play-test this one, but it was a huge disaster because there were way too many cards to keep track of. I’ve tried to trim it down but it involves a total restructuring, and I lost my muse.
I’ve been working on finishing up a book of music arrangements, and some craft making (often I make little cardboard pianos, and this time, I’m making some harpsichords.)
I’d like to get back to composing music soon. I’d been working on writing a suite for E-flat clarinet and piano, but I set it aside while I was working on the music arrangements.
I also like to bake, but haven’t had much of a reason to recently.
Oh here I am again nagging for pictures; EmilyG, I’d love to see your pianos and harpsichords.
I just released an album of original songs for solo piano (no vocals, no strings, just pretty piano music), which you can listen to here. Or, if you’re more of an iTunes kind of person, you can click here instead.
I’ve started doing concerts around New York City and hope to branch out to other cities soon, as well. And I’ll be filming a video of one of my songs next week, which I’m really looking forward to!
Yes, it’s a Fairy Hare kit. I gather that the owner sold the Fairy Hare brand some years ago and has recently reacquired it. The yarn is definitely fluffy, but not as hairy as some I’ve seen.
I just un-blocked the hat this evening. I’m not going to brush the hat or the mittens, since I think it muddies the pattern a bit and I really like the patterns to pop. Looking at the finished piece and at pictures of vintage Bohus work, I think the old yarns were fluffier. I don’t know if they just had a higher percentage of angora fiber or if they were spun in a way that created more halo.
Lately I’ve been creating rather unusual photo montages. I haven’t photographed any yet, so it’ll take a bit of explaining.
So far, I’m working with single photo images, rather than a zillion tiny images. Think of a jigsaw puzzle containing one continuous image. Now imagine the pieces are more like tiles, with geometric shapes like rectangles or hexagons, or combined, with narrow spaces between them. Or think of an image projected onto a tiled surface. This one is 32” wide x 48” high.
Before I can begin constructing the montage, I have to work on the image itself, in Photoshop. I have a ton of photos I’ve taken over the years, with lots of good ones to choose from. One was a shot of a fountain in Nice, France. There’s a central column of water that changes in height. Surrounding it are statues of pairs of men and bulls, emerging from the water. The photo I’m using shows one of these pairs, with the water shooting up behind them. I do some posterizing and color adjusting, in this case intensifying the blues, greens and purples of the statues and water.
I’ve broken the image down into vertical strips, mimicking the column of water. I print these strips with a large photo printer, laminate them, and mount them onto black foam core. Then I glue them onto my plywood surface, which I’ve framed and painted black. I’ve worked out ways of making the pieces look like actual tiles, but of course much lighter. They are separated by 3/32” gaps. At the very top, I’ve left it somewhat unfinished, accentuating the upward thrust of the water.
This piece will take me about 6 weeks to complete. I’ve left out a lot of the process, but I hope I’ve given you an idea of what I’m doing. At some point, I’ll post photos.
I’m teaching myself to draw and paint, surprisingly successfully.
Nice thread!
Me and two other guys just had an audio-visual performance at an exhibition in Poland. It went really well, and we’ve been invited to do a variation of it at a festival in the Netherlands in the end of march. So back to the drawing board!
At the side I’m growing alum crystals for a project I’m working on. I’ve been working for a while with this, but until now I’ve mostly focussed on magnesium sulphate because of limited time. I didn’t really get what I was hoping for with those, but I discovered some characteristics of alum crystals that could work really well. I guess I just have to give it the time it needs.
I recently had a budget book-binding “course”, to teach a friend of mine. It’s really fun, so I might pick up the needle again on a more regular basis.
Me and a friend have been jamming since september, and now we’re thinking about maybe having a free .zip album release of what we have so far.
And… I have to write and compile documentation from a performance I had in January, in some neat and presentable way.
Not all of this is hobby, though, since I study art. But it is personal and creative, so here goes.
A fellow at work was telling of an odd place he slept once and it triggered an idea for my first movie. I sent an email to the administrative assistant of a studio that [del]produces lots of low-budget crap[/del] seems open-minded, asking how I can make a submission without it being tossed unread, and I expect a [del]form letter telling me to get lost[/del] helpful response any day now.
I am loving looking at the pictures and hearing about everyone’s projects.
I just finished these snowflake socks. They were supposed to be done before Christmas, but oh well. Better late than never.
Nice work! Are the snowflake motifs knitted with beads, or a sparkly yarn?
Since I’m currently a working student, I have to live vicariously through this thread, not having much time for any art/craft endeavors of my own.
Pics?
